Cortical thickness of primary motor and vestibular brain regions predicts recovery from fall and balance directly after spaceflight

Koppelmans, Vincent; Mulavara, Ajitkumar P.; Seidler, Rachael D.; Dios, Y. E. De; Bloomberg, Jacob J.; Wood, Scott J.

doi:10.1007/s00429-022-02492-z

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 85 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…First, it is known that structural brain changes occur in space crew, which mainly point to tissue remodeling and fluid redistributions. To date, it is unclear what its functional or behavioral consequences are, although some studies have shown functional impairments related to brain structural changes 7 , 61 , 62 . We investigated whether functional connectivity changes correlated with gray matter volume changes in the PCC, thalamus, right angular gyrus, and insular cortex, and we found no significant correlation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The prospect of continued manned space missions warrants an in-depth understanding of how prolonged microgravity affects the human brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can pinpoint changes reflecting adaptive neuroplasticity across time. We acquired resting-state fMRI data of cosmonauts before, shortly after, and eight months after spaceflight as a follow-up to assess global connectivity changes over time. Our results show persisting connectivity decreases in posterior cingulate cortex and thalamus and persisting increases in the right angular gyrus. Connectivity in the bilateral insular cortex decreased after spaceflight, which reversed at follow-up. No significant connectivity changes across eight months were found in a matched control group. Overall, we show that altered gravitational environments influence functional connectivity longitudinally in multimodal brain hubs, reflecting adaptations to unfamiliar and conflicting sensory input in microgravity. These results provide insights into brain functional modifications occurring during spaceflight, and their further development when back on Earth.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Conversely, body unloading and reduced physical activity levels during space missions could be a significant risk factor for brain health, cognitive performance, and mental wellbeing. Long-duration bed rest has been shown to induce an upward shift and posterior rotation of the brain, widespread morphologic changes with brain tissue redistribution and intracranial fluid redistribution (Roberts et al, 2015;Koppelmans et al, 2017b), and effects on sensorimotor control, vestibular function and functional mobility (Koppelmans et al, 2015(Koppelmans et al, , 2017aYuan et al, 2018), selective attention (Brauns et al, 2021), affective processing (Brauns et al, 2019;Basner et al, 2021), neural efficiency of memory encoding and retrieval (Friedl-Werner et al, 2020), dual-tasking (Yuan et al, 2016), and spatial working memory (Salazar et al, 2020). Dry immersion also mimics the unloading and reduced physical activity levels of spaceflight.…”

Section: Recommendation Level 2-2: Increase Research In Space Analog ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These changes include an upward shift of the brain within the cranial compartment, ventricular expansion, perivascular space changes and white matter alterations. A few studies have further shown that these brain changes correlate with changes in functional behaviors such as posture control ( Lee et al, 2019b ; Roberts et al, 2019 ; Koppelmans et al, 2022 ). The nature of these associations supports the interpretation that some brain changes with spaceflight are “dysfunctional”—that is, they are correlated with poorer performance—whereas others appear to reflect adaptive plasticity ( Demertzi et al, 2016 ; Pechenkova et al, 2019 ; Hupfeld et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future research directions to identify risks and mitigation strategies for neurostructural, ocular, and behavioral changes induced by human spaceflight: A NASA-ESA expert group consensus report

Seidler

Stern

Basner

et al. 2022

Front. Neural Circuits

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A team of experts on the effects of the spaceflight environment on the brain and eye (SANS: Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome) was convened by NASA and ESA to (1) review spaceflight-associated structural and functional changes of the human brain and eye, and any interactions between the two; and (2) identify critical future research directions in this area to help characterize the risk and identify possible countermeasures and strategies to mitigate the spaceflight-induced brain and eye alterations. The experts identified 14 critical future research directions that would substantially advance our knowledge of the effects of spending prolonged periods of time in the spaceflight environment on SANS, as well as brain structure and function. They used a paired comparison approach to rank the relative importance of these 14 recommendations, which are discussed in detail in the main report and are summarized briefly below.

show abstract

Summary and Future Directions

Macaulay

2022

Spaceflight and the Central Nervous System

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cortical thickness of primary motor and vestibular brain regions predicts recovery from fall and balance directly after spaceflight

Cited by 7 publications

References 85 publications

Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity

Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity

Future research directions to identify risks and mitigation strategies for neurostructural, ocular, and behavioral changes induced by human spaceflight: A NASA-ESA expert group consensus report

Summary and Future Directions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About